Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 69 



YELLOW STAR GRASS (Hypoxis hirsuta) is the 

 most widely distributed of any of the members of the 

 Amaryllis family. It is very appropriately named. 

 Prom April until July and more sparingly until Sep- 

 tember we may see these bright shining golden stars 

 peering at us from a background of green grass. So 

 closely do the leaves of this little plant correspond 

 to the grass leaves, among which they grow, that 

 sharp scrutiny is required to distinguish them. 

 Usually fields or open woods are chosen for their 

 habitat, dry places in which we may also find quanti- 

 ties of Bluets or Innocence and common Cinquefoil. 

 Although there are from four to eight buds to be 

 found near the summit of the slender scape, but one, 

 or at most two, of these open at a time. As they re- 

 main open for several days, a single plant may re- 

 main in bloom for two or three weeks. The blossoms 

 are visited by several of the smaller bees for pollen; 

 some of this is often unwittingly carried to the 

 sticky stigma of the next flower visited and cross- 

 fertilization effected. The flowers, in withering, 

 close up so that should a blossom not have been al- 

 ready fertilized, its own anthers will come in contact 

 with its stigma. 



The flowers are in a loose umbel at the top of a 

 scape from 3 to 8 in. in height; perianth wide spread 

 and divided into six shining, golden-yellow sepals, 

 paler and slightly greenish on the outside; the six 

 stamens tipped with large golden-orange anthers. The 

 slender, narrow, grass-like leaves come from a small 

 bulb together with the flower scape. This species is 

 common from Me. to Manitoba and southwards to the 

 Gulf of Mexico. 



Cooperia Drummondii has a solitary white flower 

 with six wide spread divisions and a long slender 

 tube, from 2 to 4 in. long. Leaves grass-like. Found 

 on prairies from Kans. to Texas. 



